Last week I finished my last dose of typhoid vaccine (interesting fact: typhoid, if you did not know, is a type of Salmonella.) Not fun, but much less unfun than typhoid itself, I'm sure. Around the same time, I received an email from the World Vets team leader, whose job entails not only running the clinic but making sure the newbies don't get into trouble abroad, reminding us that no matter how adventurous we might be, the street food in Tanzania must not be consumed. "One word," she said. ... Read more »
Behind the Paw
All tests are not created equal: Inside Natura Part 3 (and a giveaway)
As long as the internet continues to be a depthless repository of the past, an endless attic of antiquity where people can dredge up whatever photo or story they want from previous years and turn it into whatever they wish, Procter and Gamble will struggle with the PETA/Iams cruelty video from a decade ago. Peta continues to drag it out every few months because, well, it gets well meaning people to send them money, despite the fact that it was inaccurate at best, and no longer relevant at ... Read more »
Inside Natura: Meet your feed
My friend Susi, who has a habit of asking very interesting and pointed questions, posed a great one to the people at Natura on our tour last week: What's the difference between Natura foods and Eukanuba? Now, the guy answering the question works for Procter and Gamble, which owns both brands, and they position themselves similarly in terms of the type of person who might buy them, so I was very intrigued to see how he would answer it. He gave a sports analogy. On one side of the coin, you ... Read more »
Inside Natura: Part One
What makes a pet food good? How do you pick a pet food? I'm genuinely curious. The number of choices out there is dizzying, isn't it? It's one of the biggest challenges of being a pet owner, standing in those aisles, peeking up and down at the bags and trying to figure out based on the information we have at hand what is going to be the best choices for our pets. But where do we get our information? From our own research. From the guy in the pet store. From the vet. From the company who ... Read more »